Do You Drink Too Much?

How much is too much?

Follow these 7 tips for cutting your consumption.

Do you enjoy one or two glasses of wine a night?

Do you abstain from drinking during the week, only to binge on weekends?

How much is too much?

While I don't want to focus on the disease called alcoholism and alcohol abuse (because I'm not an expert), I did want to focus on the lifestyle choice, what it means for your health and what you can do to change it for better health.

Alcohol comes with a cost:  Calories

• 12 oz regular beer, 149 calories
• 12 oz light beer, 110 calories
• 1.5 oz spirits, 98 calories
• 5 oz red wine, 96 calories
• 5 oz white wine, 90 calories
• 4 oz margarita, 168 calories
• 4 oz pina colada, 210 calories

Check out this site to enter the number of drinks you have in a week, to find out the total calories of your consumption:  Alcohol Calorie Calculator.  Your alcohol calories are not free! 

Consider the effect of a year's worth of alcohol.  You have one glass of wine every night.  That's approximately 700 calories a week, or 2,800 calories a month, or 33,600 calories a year.  Those 33,600 calories are equal to 9.6 pounds.  So, you really want to know why you aren't losing weight?  You would have to walk 18 miles a month just to maintain your current weight and current alcohol consumption. And that 18 miles is above and beyond what you are currently doing for exercise and/or your job.

What Should You Do?

If you're trying to watch your waistline, or just don't like how you feel the day after, consider the following tips:

• Drink one glass of water in between every alcoholic beverage.
• Delay your drinking "time of day" by 1 or 2 hours.
• Stop drinking after a certain hour.
• Do not drink (beer, typically) to quench your thirst.  Drink water.
• Use a smaller wine glass.
• Watch out for "super sized" margaritas at many restaurants.
• Slow down and "taste" your drink - after all, that's why you're drinking, right?

If you think you have a problem, please seek professional counseling.

Live happy and healthy, 365fitt!

Kathy